Luís Soares > Luís's Quotes

“...no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavors to establish.”
― David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding/An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals

“If you can't write clearly, you probably don't think nearly as well as you think you do.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“I believe that the extraordinary should certainly be pursued. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”
― Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science

“It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.”
― Carl Sagan

“The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is most likely to be correct.”
― Franciscan friar William of Ockham

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman's Odyssey

“Simplicity – the art of maximizing the amount of work not done – is essential.”
― Ed Stark, Agile Project Management QuickStart Guide : The Simplified Beginners Guide To Agile Project Management

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
― Clare Boothe Luce

“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?”
― Albert Einstein

“Think globally, act locally.”
― René Dubos

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
― Marthe Troly-Curtin, Phrynette Married

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
― Socrates

“Good Artists Copy, Great Artists Steal”
― Pablo Picasso

“It all depends on how we look at things, and not on how things are in themselves. The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it.”
― Carl Gustav Jung

“Valeu a pena? Tudo vale a pena
Se a alma não é pequena.”
― Fernando Pessoa

“No amount of belief makes something a fact.”
― James Randi

“One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.”
― Bertrand Russell

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
― Anaïs Nin

“Being a Humanist means trying to behave decently without expectation of rewards or punishment after you are dead.”
― Kurt Vonnegut

“Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.”
― George Carlin

“Never argue with an idiot. They will only bring you down to their level and beat you with experience.”
― Mark Twain

“The fact is that far more crime and child abuse has been committed by zealots in the name of God, Jesus and Mohammed than has ever been committed in the name of Satan. Many people don’t like that statement, but few can argue with it.”
― Carl Sagan quoting Kenneth V. Lanning

“If you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it yourself.”
― Albert Einstein

“To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.”
― Charles Darwin, More Letters of Charles Darwin, Vol 2

“It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable; it is precisely thereby that it attracts the more subtle minds. It seems that the hundred-times-refuted theory of the "free will" owes its persistence to this charm alone; some one is always appearing who feels himself strong enough to refute it.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche

“It's now very common to hear people say, 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if that gives them certain rights. It's actually nothing more... than a whine. 'I find that offensive.' It has no meaning; it has no purpose; it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what."

[I saw hate in a graveyard -- Stephen Fry, The Guardian, 5 June 2005]”
― Stephen Fry

“The keystone… some have called God, some Brahma, some Zeus… some even IAO… but in truth, O seeker, it is Thy-SELF.”
― Aleister Crowley

“The most dangerous phrase in the language is we've always done”
― Grace Hopper

“A man has as many social selves as there are distinct groups of persons about whose opinion he cares. He generally shows a different side of himself to each of these different groups.”
― William James

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space